take it slow
by zeshadesofjustice
Summary: Fall in love with Draco and Luna... Jane Austen style.


They weren't supposed to be near each other, much less be nice to each other.

But they were.

She was beautiful (to him) and she was strange, but she was smart, and she was sweet. Her voice was sometimes lofty, and dreamy, but it was always kind. She should be angry with him, but she wasn't.

It intrigued him.

The first time that they had met had been during his second year at school. She climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express, and he could tell right away that she was going to be a Ravenclaw. The air around her was too kind to be a Slytherin, but her blood was pure enough. She didn't seem like a Hufflepuff - even if he was basing that off the fact that they were particularly good finders, and she was wearing mismatching socks. There was a hint of boldness about her that suggested she could be a Gryffindor, but she just felt _smart_, even if she felt strange. Too smart for the rest of them, maybe. That only left Ravenclaw.

He wasn't going to talk to her, not at first. But then she came toward his compartment, and neither Grabbe nor Goyle were there yet. He told himself later that he would have talked to her even if they were, but it probably wasn't true. They'd expect him to treat her worse than everyone else did, and all because she was different from everyone else. Better than them, he thought sometimes.

"Oh, hello! I didn't realize this one was taken. I'll just keep looking." The lightness of her voice reminded him of chimes.

"It's quite alright." He studied her, maybe longer than he should have. But he wasn't looking down his nose at her, just...looking at her. "I'm one of the first on. Plenty of places to pick from, especially for a girl like you."

She returned the smile he sent her, and he watched as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear again. "I'm Luna, by the way. Luna Lovegood."

"I'm -"

"Draco Malfoy."There was that smile again, and he couldn't think of anything to say. "I know who you are, of course."

"Of...course…" He watched as she turned away, and then she paused in the doorway. "I hope you enjoy Hogwarts, Luna. I think you'll quite like it there."

And that was that.

He was anything but kind to her from that day on, in public anyway. She would see him by himself sometimes, and he would glance her way. Tentatively, she'd raise her hand and give him a smile. And, every time, he would lift his hand in return and his face would lighten up.

He didn't know it, but she could see the cracks in his wall and just the thought of noticing something else that nobody else did gave her hope. She knew that Draco Malfoy was not quite the vile person everyone believed him to be.

There were days on end during his sixth year where he felt like doing nothing but crying, but he tried to stay strong. So much was going on. Becoming a Death Eater. Finding a way for his fellow Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts. Planning the way he would kill brilliant, kind, patient Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster he claimed to hate but secretly admired. It became too much, and he started spending time in Myrtle's loo, crying when he thought nobody else was around.

She knew what he did every afternoon, but she kept silent about it. Even he didn't know that she knew his secret.

The day he was discovered crying by Potter was the day he found out Luna knew. He hid away twice that day; once in the morning, and then later, when Potter came in. The first time, the tears were worse.

He was already on the ground when she came in; one leg up was up, bent, with an elbow against the knee and the other stretched out ahead of him. She eased herself down beside him, and without a word, stayed there while he cried.

"You didn't have to do that, you know." His voice was quiet, his throat scratchy.

"I know." She gave him a small smile. "But I wanted to."

They sat in silence again for several minutes, and then he turned to her. "Don't say anything to anyone, please."

"I won't." Her hands were in her lap, and she stared at them for a few moments before looking back up. "I haven't."

And he didn't even have to say anything else, because he knew then that she had known all along.

* * *

He tried to pretend that the war never happened - at first. It was hard, with his father gone and his mother busy mourning the sister she had lost, the husband she had never really had, and a friend who had been braver than any of them thought. Hogwarts was his escape, because at least there he could help restore the destruction. He didn't have to walk through hallways, hearing the echoes of the screams of one particular girl over and over and over again.

The work on the school was nearly halfway done when she approached him. He was sitting at a table, alone, in the Great Hall. The other tables were occupied by the other people working, but he always opted to sit away from them. Too many stares, too many whispers.

"How's your mum?" She sat across from him, and he looked up when he heard her voice. "My father says that when those one cares about are sad, they're sad too. And you look sad, Draco."

"I am." _But it's not because of her_. He didn't say the last part, though, because it was something he realized only when she said it. She looked nearly the same as she had before the war, with her dirty-blonde hair in pretty curls and her wand tucked behind her left ear. Her earrings were now Butterbeer caps and her necklace was missing, but that was trivial. What he noticed most was that she was sad, too. "But so do you."

And by then, it didn't matter what either of them said, because they already knew that her father was right.


End file.
